Student Records

The Student Records Management Team have seen a 23% increase in the number of online workflow requests (4733), since the equivalent point last year (3856). This represents a 100% increase on the number of requests from two years ago (2351). The bulk of requests are around course transfers, temporary withdrawals, resumption of study and PG extensions. Despite carrying vacancies, the team have done a fantastic job to work remotely and keep on top of the workload, and whilst overall processing times have increased slightly, the average submission to completion remains less than two weeks (with more fully ‘approved’ than the same point in 2020). The need for speedy coding of progression and graduation decisions for PGT did also require some socially distant on-campus working, due to the nature, volume and complexity of the work during November and December.

Awards and Ceremonies, Enrolment, Transcripts and Examinations

Whilst Degree Ceremonies might not have happened in a physical form since the pandemic hit, students have still graduated and physical certificates and transcripts have still needed to be sent out. The Awards and Ceremonies Team and some members of Student Records have therefore been unusual in maintaining a regular presence on campus. Some of the headline stats (as of the end of Jan) are:

Certificates & Transcripts/HEARs

• Students cleared to graduate from Jan 2021 cohort: 4,385, of which 4,300 receive a certificate (and of which 4,215 despatched to date)
• Certificates awaiting posting due to queries (e.g. incomplete courier payment, missing address, missing transcript, etc): 85
• Certificates sent by DHL courier: 2,277 (which amounts to payments between Nov – Jan of £99,460)
• Additional lower awards recently dispatched: 397 (115 awaiting printing/posting - mostly due to missing transcripts at this stage)

Higher Education Achievement Report (HEAR )

Total registrations to date:	57,887
Current student registrations:	18,938
Alumni registrations:	38,949

Between 01/10/2020 - 01/02/2021 some 6,471 new students have had accounts created and their first HEAR uploaded with 20/21 modules.

Content for 26,606 – all current students who have formative HEARs – has been uploaded to show current academic year modules.

Transcripts

In the last 6 months (since the start of August) there have been 829 individual additional transcript requests received via the online form of which 621 were successful i.e. payment transaction successful.

Course Registration (online enrolment)

• Completed 33,079 times since 1 August 2020 by 30,867 different students (main duplication is the pre-sessional english course in addition to the substantive course).
• For just new students, it’s 15,664 times since 1 August 2020 by 14,317 different students.
  (its worth noting that changes to monitoring and student engagement introduced significant additional work for the first time in January)

Alongside all this business as usual and adaptation to the challenges of lockdown, the teams have not just stood still but continued to innovate: graduates will shortly be able to request secure digital copies of their certificate. The HEAR has also undergone further development in preparation for the inclusion of component marks (as well as the overall module mark). Both of these developments will assist students/graduates in securing placements, employment or further study.

Exams and Module Registration

Exam sittings

Since the December and January exams some 4283 students have taken online exams, amounting to circa 9000 exam sittings.

Preparations for the April timetable (along with prep for the main Summer exams TT) have started in earnest: module registration is now closed to students, and depts have until 12 February to confirm any changes.

Module deregistration will open on 15 February, for elements of the Science faculty only.

A significant sub-project in this area is rationalising and overhauling large amounts of digital content generated by different stakeholders over the summer 2020 period (Exams, Web Dev, The T&L comms team, EPQ, etvc). The aim is to provide a more straightforward and accessible website presence for students and staff alike.

External Examiners

Reports from our external examiners are over 90% complete (96% for UG and over 90% for mainstream PGT). This amounts to some 250 reports with over £170k worth of associated fees processed.

Andrew Higgins
Director of Student Administrative Services